Insider Media Limited

Nottingham City Council has given the green light to a 177,606 sq ft office development on London Road in the city. Mark Krassowski, director of Walsingham Planning, which helped put together the planning application, told Insider this morning: “The Council unanimously accepted the planning officer’s recommendation to grant planning permission, subject to the Oakhill Group entering into a Section 106 legal agreement.” The 3.7-acre site is currently being used by Castle College as an education and training centre. Oakhill Group, a subsidiary of property company Ridge, which has offices in Leicester and Birmingham, wants to turn the site into a mixed-use development of offices and a restaurant/bar. Oakhill sees the proposal as the first phase of the wider development of the Eastcroft area, and council chiefs will no doubt hope that the scheme will kick-start the nearby Eastside regeneration zone, which has been mothballed since before the recession. However, Krassowski added that no start date for the London Road scheme had yet been decided. He said: “The scheme is the culmination of several years of discussion with Nottingham City Council and also involved Nottingham Regeneration Limited. We are hoping that the development will be the start of the regeneration of the whole area including the Eastcroft Depot.” Nottingham-based CMPG Architects is now working on a detailed design, and the agent on the scheme is Innes England.